bump for the AM crew

I've done some searching and can't find anything useful; does anyone have a good (well-respected professional yadda) resource to back up the "Akismet is no longer a useful anti-spam solution for non-Wordpress sites and you should be using something more sophisticated and modern" prevailing opinion?

When I am god-empress of the universe the first thing I'm doing is abolishing "pharmacy benefits managers"

This is 100% true for whatever value of "the video". My guide to avoiding traumatizing media and how to do it more psychologically safely if you absolutely *must* watch it: synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/803314.html

My reason for posting about the nightlight become clear!

In 2005-2008 or so I was being aggressively headhunted by various companies that all wanted to hire me away from LJ for a lot more money than I was making but it was before they all discovered remote work and I am so fucking glad "moving to SF" was my single hard no

It's betting time! In one corner: two perimenopausal women with brain fog, fatigue, and severe ADHD. In the other corner, a LED rechargeable motion sensor nightlight that's almost out of charge and we both keep meaning to swap with the charged one from downstairs. Bets on how long until we do it?

If you need an ATProto tech writer, Heika is available!

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of finding one constructive real world offline thing you can do to use your particular skills in service of fighting fascism as a psychological defense against the constant drumbeat of fuckery

Also every time this comes up, folks from Australia and the UK say they're very glad they don't have rabies in their bat population: you actually do! It's European bat lyssavirus/Australian bat lyssavirus, not "classic" RABV, and it's lower prevalence, but there have been fatalities from both.

I would really like my neck to stop hurting now

There are SO MANY blockable people in the comments. (OP is the policy director of the Free Speech Coalition, I guarantee you he has done a million times more to protect sex workers from exploitation and abuse than any of the SWERFs whining at him.)

Embodiment remains a fucking mistake

just gonna drop some links to a few papers of mine about AI-CSAM and the law here, for no particular reason cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/ai-csam... (May 2025) partnershiponai.org/hai-research... (November 2024) www.lawfaremedia.org/article/addr... (February 2024)

Okay, this is probably the most incredible "how I managed to find my specialist doctor" story ever: variety.com/2025/tv/colu... I hope her new specialist can get that poor woman some relief!

Okay, I will preface this with the GIGANTIC disclaimer that I promise I know how this looks, and I *swear* this is not personally motivated: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. Details:

Happy 2026 from EST! Under the theory of "what you're doing at midnight sets the tone for your year" and not wanting that tone to be "work", I fucked off to the porch to smoke with five minutes to go and am now listening to the kabooms backing the gentle peeping of our audible pedestrian crossing

oh Johns Hopkins you did NOT just fucking email me a fundraising call to action with a typo and an unsubscribe link that errors instead of working, asking me to donate "to ensure the future of medicine"

Spending my NYE cleaning up after Uncle Vova again wheeeeee

THIS. Medical professionals shaming ANYONE, even anonymously, for seeking medical care for a thing society already treats as a punchline further stigmatizes and disincentivizes people seeking medical care! I know of an instance of a responsible, safe toy designer HIMSELF, who KNOWS the rules --

This sounds like an excellent event for folks who are new to the age verifiable debate and not yet convinced that these laws are as harmful as they really are!

Two quick #ModListHousekeeping notes: 1. I'm gonna start tagging housekeeping notes with that tag ^^ so people can find them via search among all my whining about embodiment being a mistake;

Very very very useful resource!

Dear universe: please stop making medical emergencies happen for my friends. If you have it to spare: Lane is one of the best and fiercest defense attorneys I know, and his commitment to pro- and low-bono work means a long medical recovery could be really rough for him financially.

WELP. The court in TN unsealed the order on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's motion to compel discovery that was ruled on in early December, and HEY GUESS WHAT, MCGUIRE'S PANTS *WERE* ON FUCKING FIRE storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Absolutely incredible thread

This is absolutely hilarious and I completely love how earnestly they are imagining the logistics of being a gay hockey player

Another ask for "help with the costs of upcoming surgery that insurance won't cover" if you have some to spare!

baaaaaaaaaby

I absolutely refuse to do a rerun of the daycare panic plotline. Nope. J'refuse

I just got a phone call from a nice lady at FedEx customs processing who wanted more information about a package I have held up at customs clearance and I had to delicately probe for how the seller filled out the paperwork and described the item

Our fabulous home vet has a new vet tech who's a trans woman (she mentioned it because we so very are very clearly Lesbian Cat Ladies) and we bonded over how fucking with your gender presentation in the face of fascist oppression is an act of resistance

This thread is amazing

Elise's year-end sale has not *quite* reached the Fucking Ridiculous levels it will inevitably reach by Tuesday or Wednesday yet, but it's getting there!

For everyone who has admired my pull down kitchen shelves but has cabinet sizes that won't fit them: Rev-a-Shelf now has an adaptable-size that will fit from 14.5" to 34.75" listed as coming soon rev-a-shelf.com/5pdyo-series

I have one more dose to go and experimentally lowered my antihistamines to see if I could get away with it! Spoiler alert: I'm not sure if I can get away with it, but I'm still *less* bright red

Lenée's ask is 89% funded and we can TOTALLY get that to 100% as a New Years' gift, right?

This is a really good explanation about why nefarious actors don't NEED ownership or supply chain attacks to exploit a router, because you probably haven't secured it anyway

Weirdly enough, I have experienced a career full of half a century of psychic damage from repeated exposure to violence (among other, worse things) and I still have avoided joining the Homegrown Schutzstaffel

I have not been read this year's Yuletide fics because I've spent the last week or so feeling extremely antisocial but this one is fucking incredible archiveofourown.org/works/73396436

Ah, I see Bluesky is once again completely failing the is/ought distinction

7/10 doses complete, and both Sarah and niq agree I am a -1 on the lobster scale. We celebrated by having guacamole for lunch.

The kakapo is both one of my favorite birds and favorite conservation stories. They are the orange cats of the bird world: so beautiful, so ridiculous, so dumb

"It took me the whole time I was walking back from the grocery store to think of this joke." "It's across the street."

Oh, well that's interesting, I put the TENS pads on my upper shoulders VERY carefully to avoid anything related to the ongoing plumbing problems, why the fuck can I feel it all the way over THERE in a place that does not actually connect up

A warning from the lawyer representing the unjustly fired Oklahoma TA! Beware of GFM scams: her client is NOT crowdfunding at this time.

Reposting out of a response thread to remind US people: if you make people mad on the internet, it is a VERY worthwhile investment to add an umbrella policy to your homeowners' or renters' insurance. I recommend a $2m per incident minimum; we increased ours to $5m recently just in case.

Oh hey look, it's Sarah Ditum, a raging fucking transphobic bigot who has been a major player in the UK "gender critical" multi-year public campaign to manufacture consent for stripping trans people of their legal rights because she's a raging transphobic bigot!

Four out of ten doses, 2/5 days complete: - still no hives! - still no fever! - still no itching! - still can breathe! - Am actually only at 1/5 on the lobster scale, so BETTER than average! Symptoms started receding *fast* after dose 3. Antibiotic-standard GI side effects, not unusually so.